Ship Rule
by Jane Bell
Summary: “Hey, Norrie! What is it that your Navykickedself is doing there, sprawled on my deck?”    “Ship rule. No drinking allowed bellowdecks after nightfall. [Sparrington]


_Disclaimer: All characters to the half-naked, very cute, little mouse. Not copyright stolen, comandeered or privateered, I'm just borrowing without permission..._

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Ship rule**

"Bloody compass!"

Frustration and tiredness washed over Jack Sparrow as he, for the hundredth time since night's warm blanket had been laid over the Caribbean sky, checked his compass. It was spinning, just as it had been for last few weeks, but only now could he perfectly understand the directions the little object was finding so difficult to decide between.

The first place it pointed to was Tortuga, and the reason for such was quite clear: it was on firm ground, away from eight-legged beasties and slimy captains wanting his soul. Moreover, it was source of rum and very pleasurable company, which lead him to the next two places the compass indicated: the _Pearl_'s rum stock and _her_.

True enough, he liked Miss Swann, liked very much indeed, but said liking ought not to be confusing the compass. Simply because she was young, physically appealing, had a fire within which was only matched by and could as well surpass his own, and, what had him thrilled beyond measurement, was engaged to another man? Jack reached blindly for the rum bottle while checking some papers. He would not run afoul of that what vexes all men, her would not fall in-

Cold glass lips came over his long-unkissed ones, but nothing came from between them except for a sweet scent.

"Bugger!" he cursed under his breath as he laid down the papers and stared at the empty bottle. "Why is the rum always gone?"

"But you know why," sneered Jack's conscience in a sing-a-song voice in his head. "Think about the lass and… Poof! There goes the rum!"

He checked his compass again, ignored its initial pointed directions and snapped it closed as it settled over the last hammock on the starboard side, the one above James's, where the only female onboard slept.

Feeling tired by Elizabeth's vexing over him, by the fear of death materialised in Jones's figure and by the constant lack of rum when he needed it most, Jack got up from his chair, put on his overcoat and left his cabin. Some of the nocturnal, sea-salty, warm breeze which made the _Black Pearl_'s sails high and his heart soar with the view of his darling braving through the waves, aye, that was sure to lighten his head.

The deck was beautifully bathed in moonlight (but then, Jack smiled in a silly way, what was there about his _Pearl_ which actually was not beautiful?), but not clear from human souls. Apart from Marty dozing off in the crow's nest, James Norrington was neglecting his watch at the helm.

Witty, Jack thought, very witty of him, to leave the hammock under Elizabeth's unguarded.

"Hey, Norrie!" Jack called as he swaggered by the newest acquisition to the crew. "What is it that your Navy-kicked-self is doing there, sprawled on my deck?"

"Ship rule," the man replied with a drunkenly amused smile plastered on his face. "No drinking allowed bellow-decks after nightfall."

"Came here to sulk off, then, aye?" Jack asked as he sat down by the former Commodore's side and took one of the uncorked rum bottles James had by him. "Care for some company?"

"No, not really."

"New ship rule," Jack uncorked the bottle with his teeth and spit the cork overboard. "Every man sulking is to invite the captain over."

"Great," the older man smiled in irony. "Then I do care for your company, Mr. Sparrow."

"That'll be _Captain_ Sparrow for you," he corrected James as the familiar, comforting feeling of liquid, sweet fire running down his throat greeted him. "So, you nasty pirate," Jack fingered the bottle's neck, "what be the reason – or rather, _who_ be the reason – of your rum-provided, emotional, totally misplaced decompensation?"

"You, most likely," James said carelessly with an alcohol-lightened mood. "The _Dauntless_ at the bottom of the ocean, my commission lost, my fiancé betrothed to that blacksmith… My honour forsaken," he finished bitterly with a gulp of rum. "All of it due, either directly or indirectly, to you."

"You welcome, then." Jack patted the other man on the shoulder with a sympathetic smile, a disconcerting contrast between his words and his actions. "Since you're a pirate, honour such as you speak of does not exist."

James raised an eyebrow at this. "An honour-less life, you say," he said mocking his captain. "I suppose that's why Elizabeth is not in your cabin at the moment: because you care not about honour."

"I don't, she most unfortunately does," Jack said before drinking more rum in order to numb his thinking enough not wonder what would be like to actually have Elizabeth in his cabin.

"So she's the reason of your sulking?" James asked.

"Mr. Norrington!" Jack sounded affronted and gesticulated widely. "I am _Captain Jack Sparrow!_"

"Yes, yes, I already know that," James cut his famous saying short, "and don't you tell me you don't sulk. All men do."

A huge gulp of rum later, Jack sincerely agreed with that statement and nodded, for the Elizabeth-in-the-captain's-quarters wonderings were not weakening at all.

"I really loved her, you know," the older of the two said in a bare whisper. "But she only saw me as a boring Marine, one who had nothing to offer but unexciting life."

"Not pirate enough for the princess's taste," Jack said with equal bitterness.

"Are you suggesting that you are?" James inquired warily.

"No, the other way around: she's too piratey for me," Jack said more to himself than to James. "Besides, she's got brave William."

"Indeed… Brave Mr. Turner…" He swallowed hard in drink-induced hatred.

Jack raised his bottle proposing a toast. "To sneaky Lizzie and brave William," he said. "That they be unexquisitely fortunate!"

"That she widows on their wedding day," James cheered, his bottle almost empty.

Both men flinched as the solution of alcohol, sugar and very little water flowed down their empty stomachs and soothed their forlorn hearts. The unearthing silence which soon followed was broken by the captain.

"Know what?" Jack slurred. "I hate women."

"Do you really?"

"Aye…" He contemplated the glassy bottle. There were no more than three fingers of rum left. "Bloody lasses who take your gold, vex and weaken us men, only to offer pleasure which is hardly worth the trouble or the pain."

"You don't mean it." James finished drinking and put down the bottle next to the other, the last full one. He knew his rum rations were much less than two bottles a day, but then, they were pirates, who cared?

"What do you mean I don't mean it? Of course I mean it! What makes you think I don't, by meaningless means, mean it?"

"You're saying nonsense because you're jealous of Turner!"

"Am not!" Jack spat outraged. "You are!"

"I'm jealous of you, above all," James said with something between drowsiness, longing and unrequited feelings in his tired, foggy, blue eyes. "Unlike me, you're free to sail the seas remorselessly, and, even if not indefinitely, you'll have her."

A bittersweet smile curved Jack's lips slightly upwards. Freedom and the lass, it felt like Norrington could see the compass and, too, understand it scowling Jack.

"I'd die if I did," Jack said in a small voice, uncharacteristically of his usual way too self-assured manner. That had been enough of sulking. He was already quite drunk and had a disturbingly clear mental image of an also very drunk Elizabeth in his quarters, which only gave him yet another problem to deal with and (believe it or not, he personally did not want to) the Little Captain was not even half of it.

He made a failed attempt at getting up, earning James's laughter. A second try, a second failure, and the situation seemed suddenly very amusing. The third, however, resulted in him grabbing a loose rope which was not tied to the sail above as it seemed, tripping over his own boots and once again falling, only this time not on his back. Instead, Jack found himself laying atop James, their foreheads knocked together, blue eyes to brown ones, snobby nose sided by straight nose, messy beard tangled with braided beard and two pairs of rum-sweetened lips being accidentally crashed onto each other.

Both drunkenness and need for touch formed an alliance against reason, causing the men to respond avidly to unplanned, however thoroughly enjoyable, kiss. Strong arms surrounded Jack's dreadlock-covered neck while the Captain's tongue displayed rough skills in James's mouth. Air soon became an aching need and the discreet noise of boot-heels tip-toeing on deck was responsible for ending their assault on each other's mouths.

"Jack?" said a sleepy voice, the very one they dreaded to hear in views of the present situation. "Is that you?"

Norrington was the one to shove his Captain to the side so they appeared to be simply laying near each other for a drink, and that was when the object of their frustrations came closer to them, her blond hair shining silver in the moonlight as if to remind them how close and how completely out of reach she was.

"James," Elizabeth smiled at the pair. "I didn't expect to see you here."

"Didn't expect to see _you_ here," Jack uncorked the last rum bottle available. For once, the lass and the rum were together in one place, both present, neither gone, both part of the realm of reality, none a product of his naughty imagination. It could be a good sign. "Fancy a drink?"

"At this hour?" she asked rubbing her eyes. "I'd rather have water."

"The scuttlebutt is right here," Jack indicated the barrel behind the mast.

"Awaken by thirst?" asked James a bit hesitantly.

"Well, yes and no," she replied as she helped herself some water from the scuttlebutt. "I had the strangest of dreams about me marrying that bonny monkey, imagine!" she laughed.

"I'd rather see you with him," James indicated Jack with his thumb and in a drunken, lazy tone, "than with that undead, draft of a cursed animal."

"Cheers, mate," Jack mumbled suddenly feeling distinctly sober and all too drowsy at the same time.

A muffled chuckle followed some commentary about them being too drunk. Elizabeth sat down between them smiling at the feeling of comfort it brought her and oblivious to the reasons why they felt so warm.

"So, what are you two boys doing up here so late?" she asked as she crossed her arms over her chest, the vision a bit too suggestive and done in utter innocence, only to the men's further sighing.

"Sulking," James said in defeat.

"Ship rule," Jack said wrapping a careful arm around Elizabeth's shoulder and fingering James to do the same. "No drinking allowed bellow-decks after nightfall."

"Care for some company, then?" she asked looking up pleadingly at them with moonlit, hazel eyes. "I can't sleep with the crew, they snore too loudly."

James and Jack exchanged ironic glances and grinned at the common idea they had. Leaning down, both kissed Elizabeth on the cheeks.

"Your company," James laughed as he snapped the last bottle from Jack's hand and took a long gulp, then handed it to Elizabeth, who looked prettily shocked.

"Is always a pleasure, love," Jack completed the sentence and took the bottle from the girl's hands as she put it to her lips but before she could drink a single drop. "Even if the rum doesn't last long."


End file.
